Baker Botts lawyers sponsor troop at E.J. Scott Elementary

by Rebecca Robertson, co-leader Troops #3293 and #3296
In 1993, a group of women lawyers from Baker Botts, L.L.P., started a Girl Scout troop at E.J. Scott Elementary, located in Houston’s Fifth Ward. The troop is one of many activities sponsored by Baker Botts as part the firm’s longstanding school/business partnership with Scott Elementary.
Every year since the troop was founded, several women from our firm, including lawyers, legal assistants, and support staff, have volunteered as co-leaders for the troop. Because we share the load among a large group of co-leaders from the same workplace, it’s easy for this group of busy, professional women to participate as leaders without a huge time commitment. Many of our troop activities are the typical ones, such as camping, try-its and badges, and cookie sales. But we also look for opportunities to expose the girls to our firm and to introduce them to professional women we know through our work.
To celebrate the end of the school year and to mark the departure of several of our sixth graders for middle school, Baker Botts hosted an “urban campout” for our troop one Friday night in June. Our Brownies and Juniors brought their bed rolls to our offices, located in a downtown Houston skyscraper, to spend the night. The girls had the run of our 39th floor for the evening. We ate Italian food, played games, did yoga, watched movies, and had a candlelight ceremony to say goodbye to our sixth graders. The next morning, we took the light rail from downtown to the museum district, where we took in an Imax movie and visited the Cockrell butterfly habitat at the Museum of Natural Science. We wrapped up our “campout” with a stroll through Hermann Park and a quick trip on the light rail back to downtown. As the picture shows, the event was a huge success.